The view of death will determine the type of life and culture that the person and the society collectively will build. Understanding the view of death opens a door of understanding into the values that under-gird individual choices and cultural patterns; it may reveal the meaning of life within society. In a society like Colombia, which has developed a culture of violence, an understanding of the worldview related to death and the afterlife is the structural paradigm that is prerequisite to understanding the values of life which form culture.

This research uses the death ritual as a window for investigating basic values; indeed the meaning of life. This was done by observing the wake and funeral and then listening to the related value laden conversations and interviewing individuals who recently lost a loved one. These rituals and conversations reveal the most foundational of values that form the socially constructed meaning of life.

Analysis of the data demonstrated a universal belief among the informants in an afterlife, a fatalistic view of life and death, the need for the living to help the dead in transition, then an expectation of help from those who inhabit the spirit realm and are now in the presence of powerful spirit beings. The deceased, upon securing release from purgatory and arriving in heaven, repay the living by intervening with the powerful spirit beings to help them in the struggles of life. Men and women are thought to be judged by a harsh God upon entering the spirit realm based on how they fulfilled their gender specific roles while on earth.

There is a clearly defined social order in the levels of spirit beings. These spirit beings become models for human social structure. Machismo is the most visible of the socially constructed gender hierarchy that reflects the hierarchy within the spirit world. These roles are clearly defined in both the spirit and material world and are the subject of reinforcement in the chants of the magic words and conversations of the death ritual. Effecting change in individual worldview in Colombian society can be achieved only by transforming these gender role models.

I dedicate this dissertation to my beloved wife Jean who patiently endured many long separations so I could study and who willingly and capably shouldered the extra